Anita Dodges USA Visa Saga

Anita De Sooso “I’ll not talk about the US visa matter today. I’m going to hold a press conference later this week to speak to that issue. All of you will be invited. That’s going to be the part two of my issue with Michelle McGowan’.

Those were the words of Anita De Sooso, the loquacious Women’s Organiser of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) who was refused entry into the United States of America after her name was put on the ‘No Fly List’ of the American government, reserved for terrorists and corrupt politicians.

The ‘no fly list’ is a list created and maintained by the US government’s Terrorist Screening Centre (TSC) of people who are not permitted to board a commercial aircraft for travel in or out of the United States.

Speaking for the first time yesterday on Adom Fm after the story of her refusal to be allowed into the US broke last week, Anita Jemima De Sooso noted that she would need a massive press conference to tell her story on why the US State Department cancelled her entry Visa when she attempted boarding a Delta Airlines flight to New York last week Monday.

She said everybody will be invited to the press conference where she would lay everything bare.

Anita met her waterloo after threatening a US citizen, Michelle McGowan, who had travelled to Ghana on humanitarian ground to help some kids with a skin disease popularly referred to as ‘alligator children’.

Michelle subsequently reported the NDC Women’s Organiser to the FBI and the State Department who put the radar on her during her visit to the US in March and penned her down for ‘punishment’.

Explaining why the US banned Anita, Michelle said: ‘The Anti Corruption Squad tracked Anita. I don’t know what information they gathered on her but they flagged her when instead of going for a conference in New York, she went to California. The conference was for a week but she never made an appearance at the conference’.

Anita, a Deputy National Coordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO) is the first Ghanaian official to be denied entry into the United States as a result of the new American policy of preventing corrupt African politicians entry into the US.

The NDC Women’s Organiser on Monday August 4, 2014, suffered humiliation at the Kotoka International Airport when she was prevented from boarding a Delta Airlines flight to New York.

She was shown a document from the State Department blacklisting her from travelling to the United States.

The airport security was immediately alerted, whereupon she was asked to contact the US Embassy if she had any issue with the decision.

Michelle McGowan In a follow up interview with Adom Fm, Michelle McGowan denied being directly responsibility for the cancellation of Anita’s visa; but admitted that the decision had a connection with the complaint she lodged with the State Department as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) over threats on her life.

She indicated that the report she made to the US authorities led to Anita’s movement being monitored and curtailed, saying, ‘I believe that the threat that she made to me was the catalyst for the investigations; but the threat alone is not the reason why she had her visa cancelled.’

Suspicion Michelle gave a clue as to what might have possibly made the US authorities ban the NDC’s loquacious Women’s Organiser from entering the country.

At the time she reported the incident to the authorities, Michelle said Anita was in the US to attend a UN meeting in New York but she was seen in California in the company of a yet-to-be-identified gentleman.

This, according to her, raised suspicion and caught the attention of the authorities, since she failed to attend the event for which she was issued a visa.

‘Using tax payers dollars to come to the United States on official business as a Director of NADMO and (she) does not serve in that capacity. …She didn’t do what she was supposed to do and that’s what flagged the Anti Corruption Squad,’ she told programme host Captain Smart.

Michelle further narrated: ‘From what I have been told, the Anti Corruption Squad of the US State Department has detected her and cancelled her visa.’

Michelle, a professional nurse and a philanthropist, narrated how she was compelled by the circumstance to leave the country for fear of her life after Anita issued the following threats over the phone: ‘Hello Michelle, this is Anita again. I was expecting you at the police station, you were not there. So please I’m giving your number to a man working at the Flagstaff House (Presidency) and he will like you to show us the Frances Gyimah that you claim she works here. Thank you. And if you if dare not call, we will look for you everywhere that you are because we will not allow you to destroy our dear President’s name; thank you. This is Anita De Sooso’.

According to Michelle, she had no choice but to report the incident to the FBI and the State Department when she returned home from Ghana for which reason they requested and took the audio to conduct investigations into the issue.

Trip To California However, Anita denied ever visiting California, not to talk of going there with a man.

She said she actually attended a conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York with Nana Oye Lithur, Children, Gender and Social Protection Minister in March.

According to her, the trip was not sponsored by NADMO, and that Kofi Portuphy, her immediate boss, could be contacted to verify that information.